With online training clients, there tends to be lots of work upfront to get them assessed, create programs for them, and sometimes provide them with tips on how to use the app. The good thing is, once this is complete, other than check-ins, motivational texts, and answering questions throughout their program, you’re done the heavy lifting. Yes, this is one of my favourite things about online personal training because you don’t need to be standing next to your clients during each of their workouts as you are during in-person training.

That’s Great and All, But Here’s The Problem…

How do you make sure these online training clients are properly progressing through their weekly workouts? When training clients in-person, it’s easy to visually assess their strength level in each exercise and know when they need to alter their reps or weights to avoid plateauing. With online training clients, we can prescribe exercise progressions based on an educated guess and scheduled check-ins of how they should be moving through the program.

What Happens When You Get Busy and Forget to Check On A Client For a Week?

As a busy trainer, you might just assume an online training client is OK in their program and then you receive a message from them saying they feel like their workout is getting easy and they need a challenge.

The Key is Getting To This Before Your Client Has to Send You A Message!

How do we make sure we keep clients progressing without taking too much time out of our schedule? By creating estimated progressions when developing programs. This will save you lots of time and keep your clients in the loop about what’s next in their program. It’s easy to show them that they can look ahead to see how their program will change over the upcoming weeks with sets, reps, and weights, to keep them motivated and prevent the ‘I don’t feel challenged anymore’ message. Check out their personal best stats and this will help you as a trainer congratulate them and push them to exceed those stats!

I figure you are doing the majority of the work for this client at the beginning to create their program, why not go that extra mile and enter their progressions for the entire program. These are not written in stone and can be altered as needed while the client moves through the program week by week, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Remember, the key to keeping clients happy and continuing to run a thriving online training business is to ensure your clients are getting results and feeling challenged. We need to offer them knowledge, personalization, and expertise that they can’t just find in a YouTube workout program. Progressing clients appropriately will help with this and better yet, save you lots of time!

Michelle is the resident fitness expert for Trainerize. She has 8 years’ experience in the fitness industry training clients through her own business including: professional and elite level athletes, celebrities, online clients, and average people with fitness and fat loss goals, to name a few. She holds a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology, is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (NSCA) and a certified level 1 Nutrition Coach. Michelle wakes up happy every day because she is able to do what she loves for a living.
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